


Stories

by acuteroses



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Bedtime Stories, Child Frodo Baggins, Child Sam Gamgee, Declarations Of Love, Hurt Bilbo Baggins, Hurt No Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, altered ages, bilbo adopted frodo, bilbo is in his early 60's, bilbo tells frodo and sam about his adventure, frodo and sam are both between 7 and 10, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 13:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18142508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acuteroses/pseuds/acuteroses
Summary: Frodo asks his uncle Bilbo to tell him the story of his adventure, and Bilbo can't quite bring himself to finish it.





	Stories

"Tell me about your adventure again uncle Bilbo!" Frodo called, clutching desperately at his adoptive guardians pant leg and bouncing enthusiastically on the spot, curls of black hair falling around his soft face. Bilbo chuckled softly as he looked down at his nephew, simply picking him up and placing the boy onto the dining table, sat with his feet dangling off the edge. After an incredibly unfortunate accident regarding two of Bilbo's favourite cousins, the young Frodo had been left in his care, Bilbo outright refusing to let the boy grow up in buckland with the Brandybuck side of his family. Bilbo had promptly taken the young boy under his wing and named him his heir, much to the dismay of the Sackville-Bagginses, but that bothered neither of them. An interest in the languages and cultures of middle earth as well as an insatiable want for adventure - both Bagginses had much in common with each other, and to say they both got along was an incredible understatement.

Hopping down from the dining table, Frodo returned to his place at Bilbo's feet once again and continued his pleading, "Please uncle Bilbo! Sam will be coming over today, and we both really want to hear about the quest. Why, Sam has only heard half the tale and it would be cruel not to tell him the rest!"

Sighing over dramatically, Bilbo agreed without much blackmailing to tell his nephew his stories, as he had quite the natural talent for passing on tales through word. And when young Samwise tripped through the front door of his smial and into the arms of his grinning friend, Bilbo had them both sit down in front of the fire while he cleared his throat and readied his tale.

It was not long before both fauntlings were enchanted by Bilbo's tale, as despite never altering the words he told his story with, he always managed to convey such a sense of wonder that it had both boys mesmerised, two pairs of eyes locked on him as he describes the great dangers of the trolls, the darkness of gollum's caverns and the intoxication of mirkwood. The barrel ride always excited them both the most, and Bilbo never failed to catch the excited whispers passed between them whenever they came to realise that, "This wasn't something uncle Bilbo made up Sam, he lived this story down to the last word, I swear it!"

The quieter into the story Bilbo got, the quieter the boys became. It took great strength, Frodo noticed, for Bilbo to be able to force his way through the stealing, deliverance and consequences of his dealings with the arkenstone with as much zest as he had the rest of his adventure, and Frodo always remembered how his face would always fall slightly pale as he described how the King of the Dwarves had gripped him by the coat and hung him over the battlements of Erebor.

"And the King grasped me by my clothing and held me high over his head and over the ramparts of the stronghold, cursing loudly to the skies above him, 'I wish I had Gandalf here! Curse him for his choice of you! May his beard wither! As for you I will throw you to the rocks!' For a split second in my thoughts, I was convinced he was going to release me right then and there, and let me fall right to my doom, but, ever on time, we all heard a cry from Gandalf below us, 'Stay! Your wish is granted!'"

"Did you like the dwarven King, uncle Bilbo?" Frodo was quick to interrupt, causing Bilbo to squint his eyes and pull a face in his confusion. "I mean," Frodo continued, one hind intertwined with that of Samwise and the other gesturing rather haphazardly as he spoke, "after the King had almost dropped you? Surely, that must make things a bit weird." Sam stifled a small laugh at the way Frodo's voice contorted when he said 'weird', and Bilbo almost would have joined him if not for the rather daunting implication of his nephews question.

Sighing and making a quick decision, he slid from his armchair to sit with the boys on the floor, beckoning them slightly closer with one of his hands as he sorted out his rushing mind. Slowly, he began his talk. "Something you must understand, Frodo and Samwise, is that gold is a rather controlling thing - like a parasite, one might say. Want and greed seeps its way into your brain and plants itself there like a disease, a horrific thing that corrupts and corrodes and wastes away. As soon as the King stepped foot into that mountain, the gold claimed him in such a way that only sickness could, and he was not in his right mind."

Both boys looked across from him with slight caution in their eyes, the light of the hearth flickering dangerously inside them. Bilbo had told this story to Frodo many a times, like it was a simple bedtime tale, and Sam had never even heard the full thing, so a distant part of Bilbo's mind wondered if he should burden the boys with such knowledge. Another wondered if Bilbo could even face it himself.

"Throughout my journey, the King under the Mountain had been a constant pain to me, never agreeing with what I said and always disregarding me in each and every way he could think of, but never did I doubt him. Not even when he lifted me high above the ramparts, not even when he thought of nothing but gold, I never doubted that he would do what was right, and my faith in him is what I believe kept me alive through my incident with him and his company. There were many times in which we drank, and we sang like I wasn't destined to leave him behind, but that did not matter in the moment, and in the end, I suppose it does not matter now."

Bringing his hand up to grasp Frodo's shoulder, he now noticed that his nephew was holding Sam's hand a little tighter, knuckles white. He tried to keep a smile, but he found that even this simple task was becoming quite the burden for him.

"Yes, Frodo, I liked Thorin very much."

"Thorin ..." Frodo echoed back breathlessly, watching slowly as a single tear slipped it's way down his uncles face, wordless. Blinking back his tears, a mixed look of disgust and sorrow present on Bilbo's face, he hoisted himself back up to his feet and extended both his hands for the boys to take, which they did rather gratefully. Shooing them off, laughing with them as the fauntlings thanked Bilbo quickly for his tale and rushed into the garden, Samwise no doubt desperate to play with the flowers and Frodo no doubt desperate to listen.

Bilbo had no doubt that both of them would grow up to be outstanding young Hobbits, Frodo taking over as head of the Baggins family and Samwise ever beside him, as Bilbo knew that he had already started to apprentice gardening under his father Hamfast, Bilbo's current gardener. Yes, outstanding young hobbits they would be, no adventures to prevent them, no nightmares of unruly creatures or other horrific things that go bump in the night.

No long lost loves to haunt their hearts.

Bilbo did not know what he had suspected to happen when he had let Thorin's name slip past his unguarded lips for the first time in over a decade, and he supposes that is why he had been avoiding it, always referring to him as 'The Dwarven King' or 'The King Under The Mountain', but never Thorin. 'The King Under The Mountain' was a character, an eccentric copy that resided within the pages of a red, leather-bound journal or in the words he let escape near fire places. Thorin Oakenshield, however, was something he would much rather keep to himself, thank you very much, until the time came wherein he wished to share that name with the world of middle earth.

When he first told Frodo the story of his travels, it had been the first time he had told anyone, as if it was some grave secret that could only be graced by the ears of some. Bilbo was rather shocked about how easily he fell into the flow of story telling, and had been so wrapped up in his tale that he had almost forgotten about the less than ideal ending of his tale and the circumstances that forced him from the borders of Erebor, and that alone had forced him to a sudden halt. He hadn't been able to finish, rather falling into a despair of tears by Frodo's bedside, his nephew having had crawled out from under the covers to console him.

They both knew what it was like to loose someone.

Bilbo hadn't been given the time to mull over his loss since, being thrust rather hastily back into shire life with the added responsibility of a fauntling now in his care, but the constant stress was enough to send him to sleep on many nights that would have been spent isolated and awake, and for that he was thankful. Now however, with the boys outside in the garden, Bilbo was back alone in his smial, sat by down again by the fire as he let numerous silent tears slip past his eyelashes, until all at once he was consumed by a fit of grief, his body wracked by sobs as he shakily, using every ounce of strength in his being to bring his hands to his mouth in some desperate yet fruitless attempt to describe his more than pitiful wailing.

Thorin Oakenshield was dead, and Bilbo suspected that a piece of his heart died with him.

Choked, pained and distressed, Bilbo could do nothing more but sit locked by his smial's hearth as he finally expressed the years of grief that he had hidden away inside him, finally allowing himself to mourn the death of his King. He was no doubt an ugly sight, body convulsing as his face flamed red and eyes poured something horrendous, but that had never really mattered to him. As his mother had once told him, it was always the uglier cries that were the most real ones.

Bilbo did not know for how long he sat there, but he did know that by the time his eyes had finally dried, the embers on the fire had long since burned out and Frodo had long since bid his friend a goodnight and put himself to bed. He hadn't the strength to bring himself to his feet lest they give out from under him, and so he spent his night in front of the fire place, sleep taking him quickly.

Bilbo dreamed of Erebor, that he was back before death had taken Thorin Oakenshield, knelt by a stone slab and clasping a cold hand in both of his. Here it was that his last words to the King would be spoken, so he could do nothing if not make them count.

"I love you, Thorin Oakenshield, and even after death I shall never stop loving you."


End file.
